Most of Europe has a "registered building" system, where buildings above a certain age are considered historic. Renovating those buildings is an extremely difficult, expensive, and bureaucratic process. You generally need to preserve the period-appropriate look and materials. An AC unit sticking out of a wall won't pass muster.
Even newer buildings are problematic. an acquaintance of mine lives in an upper-middle-class apartment complex that was finished two or three years ago, and their architect has some claim in the contract that prevents residents from installing AC units to "preserve the building's unique look."
The US is build around privately-owned housing (and hence creature comforts) a lot more than we are, so AC is a lot easier to implement there.
There was a good book recently that described Europe as an open air museum. I honestly don’t know why you all put up with that nonsense. Is your country for the living, or the dead?
History nuts in Europe are like the gun nuts in the US (and the hunters / farmers in both). Their antics are often destructive to the rest of society, there aren't that many of them, but they're loud and influential.
And just to be clear, there is a huge difference between a person who has a keen interest in history (nothing wrong with that), and one that wants to leave every single old building untouched, and if there's a danger to residents, move the residents.
If you rent the place and your landlord doesn’t want it you’re out of luck. If you own the place and your neighbors don’t like the noise of your AC you’re out of luck too. If your building is one of the many buildings protected for historic reasons only God can help you.
European windows don't slide like American ones. They tend to open down the side or at the top, window AC doesn't work. It just leaves Portable AC and people do buy them but they also don't work very well.
That's not the only thing required to properly install an ac unit. Do you genuinely believe people die rather that drill a hole? Lile that's the blocker? What a weird take
I’ve installed them myself, there’s not a whole lot more to it. Even easier if you have double hung windows to mount one on, though my understanding is that they’re not that common in Europe.
Not a whole lot more? Mounting a 40kg external unit on the facade of a building on the 5th floor is nothing to you? And that's after you get a permit to install it on the facade, which you will likely not (depending on the country).
If you have a balcony, you can mount the external unit there, but then you need to route the piping to the room(s) that need AC. Then you need to cover the pipes somehow, which is still perfectly doable, but goes way way beyond "drilling a hole".
You can have a portable unit, but it's loud, takes up space indoors and needs to be stored somewhere most of the year when it's actually cold rather than super hot.
Certainly not getting it done with that attitude. I’m in China at the moment, none of this stops the Chinese, their highrises are festooned with the things.
It’s ~25kg for a 2.5kw/9000 btu condenser I just looked at, but yeah, if there’s no balcony/fire escape, and you’re well off the ground, you might need some rappelling gear, and you might want a pro. No idea about whatever heavy bureaucracy you live under, that’s a human imposed rather than fundamental challenge. Pipe routing isn’t a big deal, the copper lines are very flexible, just need to be careful not to kink them - give the bends a good radius. And to answer your unstated objections, you will need some tools you almost certainly don’t have lying around. Mostly, though, you need an attitude of being able to do stuff, and getting it done.
Or you can get a portable or window unit. Midea makes some really nice window units now. Might need hung windows, though, not sure whether it’s possible to make them work with casement windows. It takes a little space, but that doesn’t seem like a huge deal?
